Author: Franz Malten Buemann

Virtual call-backs have singlehandedly revolutionized the call center customer experience over the last few years. You might be reading this and thinking about the type of call-backs that happen in the film industry where casting directors search for the perfect actor to fill a role. They share the same name, but film industry call-backs are quite different from the ones that improve the customer satisfaction (CSat) scores in the contact center. Let us explain!
What are Virtual Call-Backs?
No matter how big or small your contact center is, there will always be times when the callers outnumber the agents—it’s inevitable. When call volumes are spiking like this, one of three things generally happens next:

Customers are sent to a voicemail system where they are asked to leave their details to receive a call-back from an agent at an unknown time.
Customers are placed on hold in a virtual queue to wait until an agent is free.
Customers are given the option to either stay on hold in the queue or to receive a call-back once their wait time has finished—or at a selected time that is convenient for them.

We’re big fans of the third option. Empowering customers to decide how to spend their time has been proven to increase customer loyalty, reduce complaints, decrease call abandonment rates by up to 60%, and encourage repeat customers. That’s not all. When you offer your customer a call-back, it reduces agent stress and improves your call center metrics, too.
Virtual Queuing, Virtual Hold, Virtual Call-Backs—What Does it All Mean?
What’s the Difference Between Virtual Queuing and the Call-Back Process?
Think of virtual queuing as a busy Sunday afternoon at the local deli. Patrons walk in, take a number, and wait until that number is either called or appears on the big screen. When their number comes up, it’s their turn to place their order.
In a contact center, this same type of queuing takes place, but it’s virtual and it happens while customers are on the phone. After they make their selections on the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system, virtual queuing technology holds a customer’s place in line until an agent is free and their turn arrives. Sometimes this process can take upwards of a couple of hours, which means a customer could be waiting for a long time. Long waits mean a customer is more likely to drop the call or become agitated. There is a better way.
Call-back technology waits on the line for the customer, so the customer is free to hang up the call and get on with their day. When a customer selects a call-back, once their turn in the queue comes up, the call-back system places a call to the customer’s phone, connecting them to their agent. No fuss, no muss. (With Visual IVR, Fonolo’s cloud-based call-back technology offers even more choice, allowing customers to schedule a call-back at a later time if they choose.)
Either way, Fonolo connects with the customer service agent first, before calling the customer back, ensuring a live agent is ready and waiting on the line when the customer is called. Customers have no downtime and zero waiting.

DID YOU KNOW:
Fonolo Voice Call-Backs save our clients an average of 77 years’ worth of hold time annually.

3 Reasons Call-Backs are Better than Virtual Queuing Alone
1. More flexibility
The more flexibility you provide for your customers, the better their overall experience will be. Think about it. Offering Voice Call-Backs means your customers get time back in their busy days. They can focus on their lives instead of waiting on hold for long periods. Your agents will also enjoy more flexibility in their schedules. They’ll be less worried about clearing call queues and won’t need to rush through their customer service calls and post-call work. Call-backs increase agent productivity and give your team time to offer higher-quality customer interactions.
2. Lower costs
It’s no secret that a more efficient workplace makes for less costs in the long run. Cloud-based voice call-back technology reduces telco costs and drives incremental revenue by encouraging repeat customers. You’ll spend less on overhead and end up hiring fewer agents since you won’t need extra bodies to bulk out busier days.
DID YOU KNOW: Fonolo technology is all cloud-based, eliminating the need to purchase expensive hardware that requires costly upgrades to scale with your business over time.
3. Greater connectivity
Opting to employ call-back technology in your contact center can help streamline the customer experience. Fonolo’s Visual IVR allows customers to schedule Voice Call-Backs right from your business’ online platform(s). Let’s say a customer is on your website searching for help with a product malfunction. If they can’t find the information they need, they can be directed to schedule a customer-service call-back when it’s most convenient for them. Keeping all your platforms and communication channels connected improves the customer experience and makes your business stand out.The post Virtual Call-Backs vs. Virtual Queuing: The Great Showdown first appeared on Fonolo.

Look around the rooftops of many cities and you’ll see wooden water towers. New York has thousands of them.

The reason is simple and often overlooked:

In the morning, when every resident of the building is preparing for the day, there’s a need for thousands of gallons of water under high pressure. Providing that much power via a pump is expensive, noisy and difficult to maintain.

The system in use, on the other hand, takes two or three hours to refill the tank, using reliable, quiet and cheap small pumps. After that, gravity is all that’s needed.

Adding a reservoir to a high-demand system creates slack, resilience and efficiency.

Too often, foolish short-term profit seekers forget this, and use up what’s in the reservoir without keeping future reserves in mind.

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